Nokia's Branding Oops: Lumia Can Mean "Prostitute"

[Guest]

Nokia's effort to recover from a burning platform surfaced yesterday in the form of the Lumia 800 and 710 Windows Phone devices. Not everyone was impressed by the device, but the Lumia will be remembered as a the first smartphone that makes the list.

Nokia's Branding Oops: Lumia Can Mean "Prostitute" : Read more

 

[chumly]

So what? It means prostitute. Are people afraid they're going to get hearing AIDS?

 

[killerclick]

... while iPhone means "overhyped junk" in nearly all lanuages.

 

[stereopsis]

Obviously a lot of research went into choosing a name.

 

[Guest]

Stephen Elop was prostituting Nokia's future, fortunes and patents to Microsoft.

Whoever picked the Lumia name: well played.

 

[Guest]

I'm betting, that before all this hype around the name, 99% of the below 30 year olds of latin speaking countries, didn't know about that word. This might actually make the phones more desireable with the 16-20 year-olds...

 

[saturnus]

[citation][nom]chumly[/nom]So what? It means prostitute. Are people afraid they're going to get hearing AIDS?[/citation]

+1

 

[alikum]

An article bashing Nokia (and MSFT) by Wolfgang. Why am I not surprised? You're a hardcore Apple fan, we all get it.

 

[Pyree]

Nice. The Lumia is in my pants.

 

[Goldengoose]

I saw a comment calling this out yesterday when they released and it was posted on toms. In before the media!

 

[JOSHSKORN]

So what if it means prostitute. Just install a hacked version of Siri and you're even.

 

[ano]

So what?! your name also means "a gang of wolves" if you look at it in a funny way!! how's that?! (oops yes I said it!)

 

[Vorador2]

To be precise, it's "Lumi".

 

[Guest]

has the editor already had the pleasure to review it? Please share your impressions, not just the verdict ("forgettable")

 

[ano]

seriously, "siri" in Persian means something that smells like "sir" (= garlic)... how about that?!
or "Goh" (a Chinese name) means literally "shit" in Persian... "Kos" (another Chinese name) means pussy (I'm serious)! and "Koon" (again, a Chinese name) means "ass" (again, I'm serious)!!
My point is... SO WHAT?! should they look at every single language in the world to see if the chosen name means something bad or funny in another language?!!

 

[scottrowland1441]

It wouldn't be so bad to have a prostitute with me at all times!!!

 

[Guest]

Starting to understand now, why people say Wolfgang is Apple biased. In every article i've been reading, even when not related to, manages to find a way to speak highly about Apple products and bashing everything else, whatever the brand.

It's recurrent and starts to feel annoying, even for people who like Apple. It's this kind of people that make others hate a brand.

I would understand this kind of opinions in a personal blog, not in a major site like Tom's.

 

[sayakbiswas]

nokia is now microsoft's lumia....??????

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Apple somehow changed the way the industry thinks about product names with the iPod. It took a while for its rivals to realize that barcode-like product names don't really work. As a result, we have devices such as Microsoft's Zune, which made those products much more identifiable and memorable (even if the Zune is dead now). Nokia must have had the same thought: a spicy, phonetically appealing product name with a slightly artistic touch.

BS. A device is memorable because of the functionality, not because of the name. Nokia N95 will remain forever as one of the last top non-touch smartphones - because of its functionality, not the name.

 

[Guest]

I'd be a prostitute any time rather than an old bore like Wolfgang. Life must be sad being an iLemming with exceptionally small brain.